Transportation to the Seaboard: The 'Communication Revolution' and American Foreign Policy, 1860-1900 (review)

362CIVIL WAR HISTORY pose," the cautious reader will simply have to wonder whether or not this is correct. All too rarely has Marshall-Cornwall drawn on his own experience in two World Wars or his scholarly knowledge of the Napoleonic campaigns to bring some new perspective to his twicetold tale. His work suffers by the obvious comparison with that of the earlier British soldierscholar , J. F. C. Fuller, lacking both Fuller's critical scholarship and breadth of vision. What remains is a straightforward, clearly-written derivative account, with rather handsome maps and illustrations, which may please the Civil War beginner, but will disappoint the scholar. Although John A. Carpenter, who teaches at Fordham and is the biographer of General O. O. Howard, has written a biography of Grant which covers his entire life, the focus is on Grant after the Civil War. In a book with 183 pages of text, the Civil War begins on page fourteen and ends on page sixty-two, and only fourteen pages cover Grant's life after leaving the White House. For this reason, Carpenter's work is best viewed as an updating and revision of William B. Hesseltine's 1935 study of Ulysses S. Grant, Politician. As Hesseltine's book was pervaded by a then-fashionable hostility toward Grant and his party, Carpenter's reflects many of the newer currents in the historiography of Reconstruction , financial policy, and foreign affairs. In addition, Carpenter utilizes much manuscript material, a great deal of which had been unavailable to Hesseltine. Carpenter's President Grant is a man of far more ability and perception than Hesseltine's. Carpenter, however, is no apologist, as one choice chapter title indicates: "Some of the Guilty Escape." Avoiding the development of a thesis, he simply covers the President's interaction with the major issues of his administration. "Grant the enigma remains," Carpenter concludes, "because Grant defies reasoned analysis." Here he echoes General William T. Sherman: "Yet to me he is a mystery, and I believe he is a mystery to himself." Carpenter is a meticulous historian who writes prose which neither stumbles nor soars and will not attract readers for its own sake. What he does best is to survey the Grant administration in the light of recent scholarship, showing what he and others have accomplished, and pointing the way for more work. For this reason, the rather misleading title should not deflect readers from an important reconsideration of President Grant. John Y. Simon Ulysses S. Grant Association Southern Illinois University Transportation to the Seaboard: The 'Communication Revolution and American Foreign Policy, 1860-1900. By Howard Shonberger. (Westport , Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971. Pp. xix, 265. $10.50.) book reviews363 Seeking further explanations of American imperialist impulses during the last half of the nineteenth century in the common interests of southern and western farmers, merchants, and railroad men in the opening of global markets by capitalizing on the potential of America's domestic communications revolution, chiefly waterways and railroads, this convincing revisionist study helps confirm the mounting evidence that the roots of our overseas imperialism were deeply spread before the dramatic events of 1898. In clear and interesting prose, Professor Schonberger makes his points with becoming restraint and balance; the controversies of farmers and railroad leaders over international outlets, for example, are properly subordinated, though solidly linked, with their more pressing concerns over government regulation. This reviewer found the chapters on Garrett, the B&O, and Europe, Fish, the Illinois Central, and Latin America, and Hill, the Great Northern, and the Orient particularly illuminating aspects of the thesis. The sources, if not exhaustive, are well chosen and carefully exploited; minor errors of spelling and dates do not impair the usefulness of this able book. Indeed, it should find an appreciative audience among both diplomatic and economic historians of the late nineteenth century. C. K. Yearley State University of New York at Buffalo To Die Game. The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerrillas of Reconstruction . By W. McKee Evans. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971. Pp. xiv, 282. $8.95. ) Although the Lumber River Indians of North Carolina thoroughly adopted the ways of whites, they could not, nor did they indicate any wish...